Wherever there is an excessive pursuit of wealth, there will always be the struggle to maintain one's high standard of living. Thus, one will not be able to find time to study scriptures or in some cases even perform the basic devotional activities. The greater the pursuit of wealth, the lesser time one gets for svādhyāya (self-study). This is illustrated by the following subhāṣita-verse:
kuṭilā lakṣmīr yatra prabhavati na sarasvatī vasati tatra
prāyaḥ śvaśrū-snuṣayor na dṛśyate sauhṛdaṁ loke
"Wherever the crooked mother-in-law named Lakshmi (controlling deity of wealth) resides, the daughter-in-law Saraswati (controlling deity of knowledge) does not reside there. This is because usually, one cannot easily find the mother-in-law and daughter-in-law getting along with each other."
- (Subhāṣita-ratna-bhāṇḍāgāra, Lakṣmī-svabhāva, Page 62, Verse 10)
[Import: Lakshmi devi is Lord Vishnu's wife, and Lord Brahma is born out of Lord Vishnu's navel. Thus, he is considered as the son of Lord Vishnu and Lakshmi devi. The wife of Lord Brahma is Saraswati devi and therefore Lakshmi and Saraswati are related to each other as mother-in-law and daughter-in-law respectively. Usually, the mother-in-law and daughter-in-law do not get along very well. This example is used to show that pursuit of wealth and pursuit of knowledge do not get along very well.
The Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam (1.2.10) says that one should earn as much as required to maintain oneself happily and should not strive for more. One should spend the rest of his/her time cultivating bhakti, or else the valuable chance for acquiring god-realization may be lost in this human form of life.]
(Originally posted on Facebook on 6th April 2015).
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